Where wireless communication with a centralized command and control structure in needed to interconnect personnel in the field equipped with mobile and portable radios, such as Public Safety personnel, Land Mobile Radio (LMR) networks are often relied on. Standards have been developed to promote interoperability between different (i.e., disparate) digital radio communication networks, such as some LMR networks. For example, in North America, a suite of standards called Project 25 (also known in the art as P25 or APCO-25) was developed for digital radio communications, which enables communication between federal, state/province, and local Public Safety agencies that operate on different home P25 networks. Similar protocols have been developed in other countries, such as protocols defined in the Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) standard published by European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).
In coordinating communications, a user may desire to monitor multiple communication groups, such as multiple talkgroups. These communication groups can be groups for which the user is a member, and may span different agencies. For instance, in an emergency scenario, a Police Chief may be a member of a group of police officers called to the scene, and may be provisioned as a member of a group of all chiefs (e.g., police, fire, emergency medical, etc.) called to the scene, and the Police Chief may also be a member of other police groups that are not on the scene. The Police Chief may desire to monitor activity on all of these talkgroups. Moreover, typically, at least one of these groups is a “priority” group among all of the groups (for instance the group of police officers). In such a case, no matter what talkgroup the Police Chief is listening to at any given moment in time, if the priority group becomes active, the Police Chief would want to know and to ideally be automatically joined to the priority group. However, scanning or monitoring of communication groups, especially communication groups spanning different communication networks, is limited.
Accordingly, there is need for a method and apparatus for priority monitoring of communication groups over multiple disparate wireless networks.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention. In addition, the description and drawings do not necessarily require the order illustrated. It will be further appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.